


Road Trip

by NerdWhoSaysNi



Series: Marvel Oneshots [4]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Comic-Con, Don't Touch Lola (Agents of SHIELD), F/M, Gen, Marvel Universe, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16523747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdWhoSaysNi/pseuds/NerdWhoSaysNi
Summary: Bri’s jaw clenched until her teeth ached and her knuckles began turning white. She was not their mother, not their mother, not their mother, not their mother. She repeated it to herself over and over until the gross sounds of Jace and Saph making out in the backseat were too much. “Stop it, stop it right now! Don’t make me turn this car around!”“Jace should be exiled to the trunk,” Hal suggested.“Would Jace even fit in the trunk?” Loki wondered.Hal unbuckled Jace and tried to drag him away from her friend. “Let’s find out.”





	Road Trip

Hal sat between Saph and Loki at the kitchen island. On the other side of Saph, Jace was trying to get his girlfriend to laugh by blowing bubbles in his milk. Across from them, leaning against the warm stove with a mug of black coffee warming her hands, Bri rolled her eyes at the childish antics. “You guys are literally five year olds in teenage bodies.” Loki opened his mouth to protest that he was actually a teenager in a thousand-year-old body, but Bri shut him down with a single glare. “Stuff it, Rudolph. No one wants to hear it.” Loki slowly closed his mouth and reached under the counter for Hal’s hand. Bri had every right to hate him after what he did in New York a few years ago, but he was learning to feel less hurt each time. Also, Bri never had been a morning person. And especially not this morning, at the absurd hour of 5:30am. Gosh, why were they awake right now? He turned to Haley to remind him, but he realized she had fallen asleep with her head resting in her other hand and her elbow propped on the table. Should he wake her up? 

Turned out, he wouldn’t have to. The oven timer finished and Bri opened the door to release the smell of hot cinnamon rolls into the room. Nothing fancy- just the Pillsbury kind- but still delicious. Hal lifted her head and was immediately knocked off the stool by Saph’s flying elbows as she avoided Jace wielding his straw like a sword. Haley yelped once in surprise before landing hard on the tile. A string of French and Russian curses mixed with Jace’s cry of triumph and Saph’s laughter as her straw fell to the floor. Haley perched on the stool again and put her forehead down on the countertop. “Wake me up when it’s time to leave,” she grumbled. 

Bri whacked Hal on the head with a paper plate before placing a cinnamon roll on the plate and sliding it under Hal’s nose. “Nope. Breakfast first, then you can take a nap when we get in the car. Get some more coffee if you need it. Dad made plenty.” 

Jace jumped up and poured himself and Saph another mug of coffee each. Not that they really needed it. They’d been awake since four and didn’t seem tired at all. As Loki got up to pour more coffee for himself and Hal, Bri handed him the map. “You’re the only one with an attention span worth beans and you won’t fit in the backseat anyway. You might as well navigate.” 

He smiled and tucked the map into his pocket. This was progress! “Sounds good to me.”

Half an hour later, Bri was buckling into Lola’s driver’s seat, Loki rode shotgun, Saph sat behind Bri, Hal behind Loki, and Jace in the middle back with his legs bent and twisted uncomfortably to accommodate the lack of leg room. A bag of snacks, bottles of water, pillows, and the friends’ cosplay gear were packed into the trunk. “Okay,” Bri began. “Does everyone have everything?” They nodded and mumbled affirmative replies. “Double check just in case, because once we leave, I’m not stopping. We’ve got seven hours until Boston, and I plan to get there in just as much time.” They mumbled responses again. “Alright. Let’s go.” 

Just as they were pulling onto the street, Saph gasped, “Wait!”

Bri hit the brakes so hard that Hal’s forehead hit the seat in front of her. “What?” Bri replied, trying to see Saph in the rearview mirror. 

“Does that mean we won’t have bathroom breaks?”

“We’ll still stop for bathroom breaks, but don’t expect one until we’re out of New York.”

They began the harrying trip out of the city, Loki navigating left and right turns for Bri. At a particularly long red light, Jace began timing how long they had been sitting there and Hal got bored of making faces at the taxi driver next to them. She leaned forward and set her chin on Loki’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. One hand rested on his chest and the other on his abs. Almost immediately, she felt his heart rate pick up. “Aw, you’re not nervous, are you?” she said quietly into his ear. From the corner of her eye, she could see Bri split her glare between the red light and their affection like a ping pong game. Hal decided to ignore her friend for the moment. It wasn’t like they were doing anything bad. “I wish you were sitting back here with me,” she said, “I’m already getting bored. Maybe at the first bathroom break, you and Jace can switch?”

Bri heard her and shook her head. “I don’t trust Jace to navigate. He just needs Saph within ten feet and he’s distracted.”

“This is true!” Jace announced from the backseat. 

Hal sighed and nuzzled her nose against Loki’s neck. He turned and kissed her as the light changed and Bri followed the long line of cars forward. “Loki, where’s my next turn?” Bri asked as they approached an intersection. He was a little busy, so she continued straight through two more lights. “Loki? My turns? Where am I going here? Loki!”

His head snapped up and Hal was forced to sit back a little. “We were- uh- going- and then- we turn left- um- oh.”

“Oh?” Bri echoed. 

“Uhhh, we should have turned left five streets back.”

They stopped so fast Jace’s seatbelt locked up and he made a strangled sound in his throat. Bri turned them around and found the correct street. “Okay, Amendment number one is this: as long as this car is in motion, Loki is my navigator and you’re not allowed to distract him. No touching, cuddling, giggling, whispering, and God forbid- kissing.”

Haley huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine.” Only minutes later, she was smirking out the window. By stretching one leg forward, Loki could reach down and rest his hand on her knee. At least it was something. And if Bri noticed, she didn’t seem to care. 

In fact, Bri was in a great mood until they got stuck in highway traffic. Construction on one side and an accident on the other bottle necked four lanes into two and slowed traffic to a crawl. By now, the sun was up and morning was fully upon them. Working people were struggling to get to their jobs, and there they sat among them, listening as angry drivers laid on their horns. Bored, Saph leaned against the window and began playing with the switch. Doooowwwwwnnnn, uuuuuuuup, doooown, uuup, uuuuuuup, doooooooooooooooown, uuuuuup, uuuuup, uuuuup, doooown, uuuuuuuuuup. Saph sighed and toggled the switch until Bri snapped, “The windows are not toys. Either put it down or leave it up. Don’t keep playing with it.”

“Yes, Mum,” Saph agreed, leaving it down. Haley had put her window down too and was making faces at more drivers. When a young kid started making faces back, she leaned out the window and got more into it. She found herself unbuckled, only in the car from the waist down, and aggressively making faces at a young boy in a matter of minutes. The car crawled forward until stopping abruptly. To stop her from falling face first onto the highway, Jace grabbed the waistband of Hal’s leggings. 

“Haley! Keep your head inside the car! You’re not a dog. And stop making faces at people!” Bri growled behind her while avoiding a car trying to cut her off. “Gosh, if only Tony had gotten the flight mechanics together in time, this would be so much easier."

Jace hauled Hal back into the seat and turned to Saph. “Pssst.”

Saph turned and poked him in the side. “What?”

“That car has its sunroof open.”

Bri interrupted him. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, it’s a bad idea. Stop thinking it.”

A safe time of twenty minutes later, Jace was unsuccessfully trying to toss apples and balled up paper towels into other cars via open sunroof. When an apple bounced off a soft-top and went splat on the highway, Bri turned around. “What did I just tell you? Cut it out.”

Another hour went by and soon, they were out of traffic and driving freely toward Boston again. Just when Bri thought things would stay as quiet and peaceful as they had been, she heard movement in the backseat, then Hal’s complaint. “Hey, stop it! Jace! Keep your hands to yourself!” Sighing, Bri didn’t even bother turning to look. She hunched down in her seat, her fists tightening on the steering wheel. Loki’s head whipped around to jump to his girlfriend’s defense. What he saw was not what he expected. In fact, no one was touching Hal. Instead, Jace’s hands were more than a little wandery as he and Saph engaged in some PDA. “Ewwww,” Hal complained again. “Briiiiiiiii, make them stoooooop.”

Bri’s jaw clenched until her teeth ached and her knuckles began turning white. She was not their mother, not their mother, not their mother, not their mother. She repeated it to herself over and over until the gross sounds of Jace and Saph making out in the backseat were too much. “Stop it, stop it right now! Don’t make me turn this car around!”

“Jace should be exiled to the trunk,” Hal suggested. 

“Would Jace even fit in the trunk?” Loki wondered. 

Hal unbuckled Jace and tried to drag him away from her friend. “Let’s find out.”

Bri rolled her eyes and said, “No, Jace will not fit in the trunk. Please don’t try to make him fit either.” She watched as Jace and Hal buckled in again. “Okay. Good. Now, can we get at least two miles without you three trying to kill each other?”

One and four-fifths miles later, Saph was trying to strangle Jace with a seatbelt because he was trying to tickle her. Jace was almost lying across the whole backseat, his head against Hal’s window and his feet flailing. 

Oblivious to the violence occurring in the back, Bri grumbled, “Whoever is kicking my seat is going to die in Boston and their body will never be found.”

Another mile passed, and another, and another, until Haley couldn’t take it. “I’m so booooooored!”

“That’s not my problem. Take a nap or something,” Bri answered. “We’ll stop for the bathroom in half an hour.”

Grumbling, Hal grabbed a snack from the trunk and began munching on almonds. When she finished, she found a package of gum and passed it around. She, Saph, and Jace began chewing quietly, and Bri was able to navigate the highway in peace. Until she heard whispers in the back. “Ten points if you hit a window, twenty if it goes inside the window, and fifty if you can hit the driver.”

“There will be no hitting of drivers,” Bri began. But too late. Wads of gum were flying out the windows at passing cars. “What?! No!”

Bri couldn’t be heard over Saph’s cheering. “I get fifty points! Look! It’s on his face, right there, under his ear. Look at it! I- Oh yeah? You too, buddy!” When the driver turned and flipped her off, she returned his gesture. 

“Saph!” Haley scolded. They fought for the rest of the half hour about the validity of flipping off people in other cars. 

By the time they parked, Bri was fingering the taser at her belt. They weren’t anywhere near Boston and she was ready to tie them all to the roof of the car. “Alright, everyone get out, stretch, use the bathroom, walk around, whatever. Just be back here in fifteen minutes or I’m leaving without you.” They all nodded and piled out of the car. Sure enough, in exactly fifteen minutes, they were pulling out of the rest stop. The seats were full and snacks had been replenished. Once they were on the highway again, Saph laid down with her head in Jace’s lap and fell asleep. His fingers combed gently though her hair until his chin rested on his chest and he too fell asleep. Bored again, Hal scooted forward and rested her head on Loki’s shoulder. Bri didn’t bother stopping them as they talked quietly back and forth. It wasn’t like Loki had much navigating to do between where they were and the exit they needed to get off in an hour. 

An hour and a half later, Saph had woken up and started feeling hungry. She unbuckled and kneeled over the backseat to see into the trunk for water and snacks. Bri tried looking into her rearview mirror, but saw only jean pockets and Jace’s shoulder leaning out of Saph’s way. “Yo, Super Saph, I need your serum-enhanced rear end to make its way back to the seat and buckle up again. I can’t see out my mirror. And if I have to hit my brakes, you’re going to go flying.”

“That’s okay,” Saph said casually, her voice muffled. “I’ve gone through plenty of windshields before.”

She continued rummaging for a bag of pop tarts until a sudden screech and the sound of sirens drowned out her “Aha!” As a police car sped by, Bri was forced to slam on the brakes. Saph’s gleeful face turned immediately to one of shock as she was thrown forward into the front seats. The pop tarts flew from her hand and hit the mirror so hard it snapped off and fell onto Saph’s head with a hard thud. “Owwwww,” she moaned in complaint.

“What did I tell you? What did I tell you???” Bri slammed on the horn as another car cut past and she began to swear under her breath. 

“Language!” Saph quipped, struggling to free herself from the tangle she had become between Bri and Loki.

“Get back in your seat or you’ll really hear some language.”

Loki helped Saph up and she scooted herself back into her seat. Just as she buckled her seatbelt, she remembered she didn’t have her pop tarts. So Bri wouldn’t notice, Saph waited until the car got moving again to unbuckle and reach forward for her snack. Almost immediately, the brakes tossed her forward again and she face planted into Lola’s carpet. “Fine, fine, gravity wins. I get it.” She got back into her seat and Loki tossed her the bag. “How long until we stop for lunch?” Saph asked as Jace stole one of her pop tarts.

“We’re not,” Bri answered shortly.

“No lunch? How do you expect us to survive?” Haley protested. 

“By not getting sick all over my dad’s car.” Bri tried to merge onto the highway by checking her mirrors, but the broken rearview was still on the floor where it had fallen. More swearing followed. “Dad is going to kill me if anything else happens to Lola.”

Eventually, they had to stop for another bathroom break. Loki, Bri, and Hal got out, but Jace and Saph claimed they didn’t have to go. “Suit yourselves,” Bri said, “but I’m locking you in.” She locked the car and pocketed the keys. Fifteen minutes later, Bri stood at the counter buying the most caffeinated coffee she could get and Hal and Loki stood nearby. Loki hugged Hal from behind while they shared a bag of pretzels and nutella. As Bri walked past, she rolled her eyes. “Oh goodness, you all are so gross. Get it out of your system now because there won’t be any more romance allowed in the car.” But as they approached Lola, they could hear the sounds of Saph and Jace making out again. Bri shoved her coffee into Hal’s hands and stomped toward the car. “YOU TWO HAD BETTER NOT BE DOING WHAT I THINK YOU’RE DOING.” The body of the car leaned to one side. “DON’T YOU DARE DEFILE LOLA. NO FRICKFRACKING IN THE BACK OF THE CAR.”

Bri set off the alarm and the car returned to a balanced, normal position. “JACE ANTHONY HOWARD STARK.” Wow, she really did sound like their mother. Five year olds. A whole bunch of five year olds. Five year olds trying to be nasty in the back of her dad’s car. Yep, she was going to strap them to the roof. 

Like an angry mythical monster foreshadowing a quick trip to the underworld, Bri yanked open the door and was fully prepared to drag them out and drive off with Saph and Jace still lying on the parking lot pavement. “Don’t. Say. A word,” she snarled. “Jace. Get out.” He stood, hair ruffled, shirt twisted around his torso and partially unbuttoned. “Saph. Shotgun. Now.” Saph appeared on the other side of the car, her hair also a mess, pulling her hoodie back over her tank top. She slid into the shotgun seat with absolute fear written in her eyes. “Jace. I swear, if you give me one more reason, I will personally tie and gag you and stuff you in the trunk. If you think the backseat was cramped, just you wait. And if that doesn’t help, I’ll see to it that you get strapped onto the roof. Do we have an understanding?” Jace nodded and tried in vain to flatten his hair. “Good,” Bri growled. “Get in. Behind Saph.” Once Jace had buckled again, Bri’s expression of complete rage relaxed and she took her coffee back from Hal. “Hal, behind me. Loki, in the middle. You can still navigate from there. But if the two of you try anything similar, you’d better believe I will leave you all to hitchhike to Boston.”

Hal and Loki nodded and got into the car. Not ten minutes on the highway had passed when Saph raised her hand. When Bri saw, she groaned and banged her forehead against the steering wheel. “What is it?” 

“I have to pee,” Saph confessed. 

“Hold it.”

“But I really have to go.”

“Hold it.”

“But Bri, I realllllllly have to go.”

“Then you should have gone while we were stopped, now hm? Looks like you’ll just have to hold it.”

Another half an hour passed. “Bri?” Saph started again. 

“Whaaaat?” By now, Bri had finished her coffee and was waiting for it to kick in.

“I still have to pee.”

“That’s a shame.”

“But Bri, I-“

“No.”

“Bri-“

“No,” Bri insisted, shaking her head. “I told you to go. You had the chance to go. You missed your chance. Now you have to hold it until the next stop.”

Saph stared out the window to distract herself, but it didn’t last long. “Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I need to pee. Now.”

“There’s not even an exit for the next eight miles! You have to wait!”

They ended up pulling to the breakdown lane so Saph could run off into the woods. Another hour and they were seeing signs for Boston. To see better, Hal scooted over into Loki’s lap and they double buckled together. Jace started to whine that it was unfair he and Saph couldn’t act mushy together, but Loki and Hal could. Bri responded, “Because at least Hal and Loki occasionally have the capacity to act like adults.” Hal turned and stuck her tongue out at Jace. 

Finally, only ten minutes off-schedule, they checked into the hotel and got up to their room. Hal halted in the doorway. Two beds and five people. “Bri? Where are you sleeping? How are we all going to fit?” 

Saph joined in with her own questions and the boys started to argue over her. 

Hal talked louder but no one would listen. “Bri, they aren’t listening."

“That’s not my problem anymore!” Smiling wider than she ever remembered, Bri hefted her bags and walked past them. “I’m staying with a friend. See you all in the morning! Don’t forget your cosplays!” A door at the end of the hallway opened and a familiar man with messy brown hair, scruffy beard, and French accent greeted her with a kiss.


End file.
